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When your only rivals put up an all-time free dance score and you do enough to overcome it, that really is coming up clutch on the grandest stage.

But we've known that ability around here for a long time -- 20-plus years, really.

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir showed Monday through "Moulin Rouge" you can win another Olympic gold medal. You can re-capture that awesome feeling once more, this time a long way from home.

But what they have also proven -- from Vancouver eight years ago to the pressure cooker of PyeongChang -- is there is no duplicating what they share, together.

Don't even try.

This greatness stands on its own.

Who could ever hope to match this?

First, you would need a girl, who grew up in an athletic family and has a burning desire to win. Early on, she showed that unique gift of muscle memory that only the elite own an ability to instantly recall steps and sequences that stood out to her own veteran dance teacher.

Then, you add a boy, whose mom and aunt are both figure skating coaches. Sure, he wanted to play hockey, but his older brother ice danced at the national level -- with his cousin, to boot. Did we mention the Moirs grew up with Ilderton Arena basically in their backyard?

You make that boy and girl a team, give them the years of training with increasingly high-calibre coaching, a deep connection, the ability to overcome pain and injury and the will to continue -- even after nearly all of their old rivals have called it quits.

That's how we get to where we are today.

Some may say this gold medal is redemption for the silver four years ago in Sochi. There's a small element to it -- in setting things right.

But what it really represents is the culmination of the greatest comeback in figure skating history.

Aside from the blip at the Grand Prix Final in December, Virtue and Moir returned to the competitive realm for a two-year span and won everything.

In the short dance, the Canadians established a world record and forced everyone else to chase them.

The French rose to the occasion, to the point where you wondered if Virtue and Moir had enough points in their program to add up.

They needed an additional three points in the biggest skate of the season -- and they found it.

That's what you do when you're the pinnacle of your sport.

The most interesting part of this full-circle title is how almost nothing has changed in terms of the talk surrounding them.

Fans and casual onlookers want Tessa and Scott to be together, to get married, based on the emotion they trigger on the icce.

Those are the same questions they danced around eight years ago, too.

But this time was different.

Virtue and Moir were much more at the forefront of the Canadian team leading into these Olympics.

They carried the flag together into the opening ceremonies, a wonderful honour. They were a big part of Canada's hopeful hype leading into the Winter Games, much more visible in commercials and media than in the past.

That was an important step in their growth as a team.

They were a big deal and they stepped up and delivered in that environment.

They are going out on top, with their own fairy-tale ending.

They are the greatest ice dance team ever.

No one can take that away from them.

And it will be interesting to see what their next step is -- now that they've done it all on the ice, again.